Tag Archives: connection

Dec 7 2009

Anyone Know Where I Can Get a Big Bad Wolf?

I had an insight yesterday. Well, I didn’t come to it on my own, I happened to be reading something and realized I felt the same way as the person who wrote it. And it explains why I didn’t feel anything after I told J the story about my husband. He even said “It looks like you’re handling this very well.”

What I realized is that I don’t feel anything when I’m in my therapy sessions. I don’t feel any emotion, except maybe fear and frustration. When I tell J something it’s like I’m talking about someone else, and I’m a reporter. When I told my friend about my husband’s situation I was very shaken up, my eyes filled with tears, I was emotional. When I told J I felt nothing. I thought maybe I should try telling someone else and see how I feel, but I don’t want anyone else to know. But when I think about my husband’s problem I do get emotional, and I sometimes cry because I feel so badly for him.

Looking back at all of the difficult disclosures I’ve made to J, I realize that I never felt like I was talking about myself. And sometimes when he talks to me, like when he told me that I am a good person, it feels like he is talking to someone else.

I suppose this has been a subconscious defense mechanism, but I’m no expert so I’m not sure. I do know that I feel like I have constructed a wall around me that I bring to therapy. Hey, I’m like the third little pig. He had the last laugh, all cozy in his brick house that the big bad wolf couldn’t blow down no matter how much huffing and puffing he did. But I don’t think this wall is serving me as well as it served little piggy. I need a big bad wolf to come blow mine down.

Nov 23 2009

Insight is the Booby Prize?

Ever hear that expression “Insight is the booby prize”? I’ve been reading about this. I’ve been thinking about how therapy works, reading some books, looking at some websites….. Say you feel or behave in a certain way, and you look at your childhood and “A-ha!” you see where those thoughts or behaviors began. It’s nice to know. A reason for things is always good. But where do you go from there?

I came across this on a blog:

Unfortunately, simply learning these things about myself is not the out, the epiphany is not the reward, the cure. “Insight is the booby prize…” I’ve heard.

…the fact that I am bringing awareness to my back [pain], to this tension, where before there had been unawareness is major progress, I know. I know that nothing changes until something changes. It has to start with awareness. Then comes the desire for a different way.

I’ve been looking for healing for a while now, seeking out cures, fixes to this pain, tired of resigning to it day after day. However, armed with this new information, this new understanding, I know that all the therapies and drugs and treatments I have been going through to bring end to the back pain will be ineffective until I retrain my muscles to exist in a relaxed state. My body must learn a new natural state.

Oh, if only simply knowing were enough, but no, that’s not how the Universe is designed.

After the knowing comes the work. After the epiphany comes the effort.

Another good article:

Richard Stayton’s interview with “writer’s therapist” Dennis Palumbo is interesting:

Now, the thing about writers is that they’re so therapized. They’ve been in therapy for years, and they’ll lay out a lot of their family dynamics for me. But as I always say, “Insight’s the booby-prize of therapy.” That means change doesn’t come from insight. You need insight and awareness to understand what’s going on. But change comes from courage, the risk of challenging those meanings every day. If you’re someone who believes, for example, that if you get angry you’re a bad person, then you could have all the insight in the world as to where that comes from when you were a child. But every day you’re going to have to risk showing a little anger and seeing that people around you don’t fall over dead. And until you challenge that as an adult and go, “Wow, I got angry, and my loved ones still love me. Nobody thinks I’m a killer, and it doesn’t mean I’m a terrible person.” Until you challenge that in the here and now, you’re not gonna change.

Insight = The booby prize.
Breakthrough = What occurs when you take committed action on an insight.

It makes a lot of sense. I know that I don’t let people too close to me, I don’t like to bother people, I don’t like to ask for help. And these behaviors go way back to my childhood and I know the reasons. That’s great, but now what? I guess it’s true, now I need courage. I need to try to let people in, to bother people, to ask for help…and then see what happens. Maybe people won’t run screaming in horror, or maybe they will. But I won’t know unless I have the courage to take the risks.

Oct 27 2009

Therapy Recap 10/27/09

I think I realized today that I have come as far as I can in therapy. I’m not sure if it’s me, or if my therapist doesn’t have anything else in his bag of tricks for me. I’ve known for a while that I feel stuck, that we are talking about the same kind of thing over and over. And it all comes down to J explaining the logic of situations to me, and I see the logic. I would say the same things to other people I know. But I can’t FEEL the logic. And he can’t tell me how to get the logic from my brain to my heart.

Today I printed out the October 21st entry and gave it to him to read. At first I think he understood the point of this, that I feel like there is something wrong with me. I can’t open up to people, I can’t share my thoughts and feelings with people. And looking back at my life I see this trait in myself from a very very young age. It’s a part of my personality. But later in the session he asked if I thought people can change. And then I thought that maybe he doesn’t understand the point I was making. Or maybe he thinks people can change their personalities. I don’t think so. I think people can change their behaviors or their habits, but not their personalities. J says I don’t need to still feel shame from something that happened 40 years ago. I told him that it’s now a built in part of my personality – I don’t dwell on it, I never even think about it! But it’s a part of my personality now.

He also talked, again, about being in the moment. That life is series of moments. I agree with him that living in the moment is a good way to be, but I think that the way we feel at any given moment is colored by what happened to us or around us for the trillions of moments that occurred before that moment. I don’t think we can truly be in the moment without influence from what came before. J doesn’t agree. He says if we are really in the moment then that stuff doesn’t matter.

At this point I feel like I am paying $19.40 (my co-pay) per week to have someone who looks like Brad Pitt talk to me, because this could be the only time in my life that someone like him would talk to me. And that isn’t really fair, I’m sure there is someone out there who is needing the help of a good shrink, someone who really can change. Someone not like me.

I’ll go back to my wellbutrin, klonopin, vodka, and cutting, and when that stops working there is always Plan B. But for now I think I’m done.

Sep 29 2009

Therapy Recap 9/29/09

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep last night. I haven’t been sleeping well in general, and last Monday night (night before therapy session) I couldn’t sleep at all. So last night I took 1mg of klonopin before bed. I hated myself for doing it. I’ve been tapering off the klonopin for about 4 months now, and I was finally down to ¼ of a .5mg tablet. Last week I finally stopped taking it, I couldn’t cut the pill any smaller or it would crumble. I started having trouble sleeping when I got down to that last low dose, but I thought I could tough it out and my body would adjust. It has to adjust eventually right?

But last night I couldn’t stand the thought of being up half the night and I took the klonopin. I slept great. I didn’t budge until 7am when the alarm went off. I disgust myself. I finally got off the stuff and I took it again, and it worked like a charm. Argh.

I got to therapy and there was the usual question, “What are we talking about today?” He said the things he is interested in are where I am on the self injury flowchart and how my job at the hotline is going. I have no idea why he is obsessed with those things, they barely register on my thinking on a day to day basis.

I told J I hate that question, it causes me to panic, and that I woke up at 6am yesterday morning thinking about that question and what I was going to say. That led to a discussion of what I am afraid of. We talked about how I am waiting for “other shoe to drop” (and J explained the origin of that expression because I never knew what the hell it meant, even though I use it all the time). J asked me if there have been any relationships in my life where someone left me because they found out something about me, and I said no. But I never tell anybody any of this stuff about me, this is the first time. J told me that he has had to terminate (bad choice of words, mine not his) three patients. Two came on to him (women I’m assuming), and one threatened him to the point where he was glad that the police station is across the street.

I would not do those things (I could never come on to someone who looks like Brad Pitt and is 10 years younger than me) of course. He assures me there is nothing I could say that would make him kick me out. I guess I’m more afraid that the more I tell him the more repulsed he will be by me and he just won’t want to see me anymore, or he won’t have empathy for me. How could someone who knows all of this stuff about me want to even look at me?

Somehow this led to a discussion of my marriage and how I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop with my husband. We talked about my marriage, how it is, how my husband I relate. My husband and I don’t spend a lot of time together. He does his thing and I do mine. It works really well for both of us and my husband claims he loves me and wants to stay married to me. I asked him, I said, “Now that the kids are older and you don’t need me do you still want to stay married to me.” He said, “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” J asked if my husband loves me and I told him that he says he does, but what does that really mean? J asked how I could improve my marriage and I couldn’t really think of anything. It really does work. We never fight, but we never really connect either. That’s just me, I don’t really connect to anyone anymore.

I told J that I “overlook” a lot, and that is what I think makes the marriage work. He asked if I hold back from confronting my husband because of my fear that he will leave me. Do I do that? I don’t know, I have to think about it.

Then we talked, again for the gazillionth time, how I am hard on myself, I don’t see anything positive about myself, etc. J asked why my husband loves me and I don’t know. He asked me about good qualities about my husband and I listed a whole bunch. He asked me if I think I’m a good wife and I said no. He asked me what is good about me in my relationship with my husband and I said that I don’t have affairs, and that is good. He said that is the absence of negative, it is not a positive. Anything good about myself would be the absence of negative – I’ve never killed anyone, I don’t steal or cheat on anyone, etc. He asked me if that’s due to my mom, and I told him I felt bad about everything I said about my mom last week because she is not a bad person. He said he knows that and I asked how he knows that, because I didn’t really tell him anything good about her. He said he doesn’t mean to stereotype me, but I’m pretty typical for a daughter of a mother like mine. He said my mother was anxious, and had high expectations, and wasn’t supportive, she didn’t think my worth was due to me as a person, but more because of what I did. He said everyone messes up their kids, even parents who are 99% perfect. There is always going to be that time that they weren’t there for their child when the child needed them.

He once again asked me to state something good about myself. Somehow we got onto the subject of me being reliable and I grudgingly admitted that maybe, sort of, I guess I’m reliable, sort of. He wanted me to forget the maybe, sort of, I guess and just say I’m reliable. It doesn’t mean I’m 100% reliable, because no one is perfect. But I’m a reliable person. Ok, I admitted that I am a reliable person. He said my homework for this week is not to think of good things about myself, which I seem to have confused with good deeds, but to reinforce to myself that I am a reliable person and to come up with another thing about me that is good.

I asked him if he was done with my DVD, and it turns out he never watched it. It was still in his computer, but for some reason he couldn’t watch it on his computer – who doesn’t have Windows media player (he doesn’t have a Mac so there goes that excuse)? He gave it back to me and when I got into the car I broke it into lots of tiny pieces. I never knew it was so hard to break a DVD, netflix doesn’t seem to have that much trouble breaking DVDs. I guess he wasn’t too interested in watching it, even though every week he asks me where I am in my flowchart of self-injury.

I feel really sad now. Therapy brings out all of these things. I knew all along that I can’t think of anything good about myself, but having to admit it out loud makes it so much more real. Who can’t think of one good thing about themselves? Not like “I’m a good cook”, I have that stuff. I mean something good about myself as a person. How pathetic am I? Everything about me is fake, that’s what it feels like. And I realize that parents influence their children, but I am 49 years old and I’m still being influenced by my mother. That is so…..I don’t even know.

Therapy makes me feel like shit. I’m glad J isn’t a cheerleader, my son’s therapist was like that and it didn’t feel genuine. I knew it was fake. I’m glad J doesn’t do that, actually today he started to tell me that I’m perseverant, that he has patients who come 2 or 3 times and quit because they aren’t willing to make the commitment to work at themselves, but I keep coming week after week even though it is incredibly anxiety provoking. But then he said, “I don’t want to point out your good qualities to you.” I guess he wants me to discover them for myself which will be so much more meaningful, right? He must see something positive in me. I know that I show up every week, I never miss my appointments, I pay my bill within minutes of receiving it in the mail. I wonder if he sees anything more than that? Sometimes I wish he would give me a clue.

Aug 16 2009

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Since I wrote yesterday’s post I’ve been seriously considering dropping out of the crisis hotline training program. Is it because my evaluation sheet said, “Be wary of judgments”? Maybe that is one reason. I think that comment is the catalyst for my thinking. But there is more than one reason, as is usually the case with me. There is never one thing I can put my finger on when I have an intuition about something.

The comment on my evaluation did evoke a strong emotion in me. More than one emotion really – anger, disconnect, confusion, feeling misunderstood, embarrassment. The evaluations were returned at the very beginning of the session, then we went on to be trained in the topic of the day – suicide. We split into three groups at one point (there are about 15 of us all together), and we were given a transcript of a fictitious call that we had to rate and describe what we would do differently.

My group’s scenario was that a woman calls the crisis line because she is feeling suicidal. She wants to kill herself because she is afraid of harming her children – a young toddler and a baby. She said that when she was cutting up carrots in the kitchen she got a thought that she could pick up the knife and stab the baby. Immediately one of the people in our group said, “Well we would have to call child protective services right away.” I asked why. She said, “the woman wants to kill her baby!” I said, “She doesn’t want to kill her baby. She got a thought in her head about stabbing her baby, but she doesn’t want to.” Then the caller goes on to say, “I was giving the baby a bath and he slipped under the water. I was frozen, I didn’t do anything. I saw the bubbles coming up in the water.” The counselor asks if the baby is ok, and the caller says he is.

At that point we had more of a discussion about whether we would call CPS. The fact that the woman didn’t immediately take the baby out of the water did raise some red flags, even for me, but I still think that she didn’t want to hurt the baby. In the transcript the counselor says, “You might be surprised to learn that many mothers think these thoughts, motherhood can be very stressful.” My group thought this was a terrible thing for the counselor to say to the caller, because they didn’t believe it was true. I said, “Lots of people get intrusive thoughts.” They looked at me like I was mentally ill. I started to get agitated and tried to get them to believe me. I said, “I bet 90% of people occasionally get an intrusive thought in their head. They may never admit it to anyone. And it doesn’t mean they will ever act on it.” I got a little adamant and they backed off, as though at any moment I would pull out a knife and start stabbing them, due to the intrusive thoughts in my crazy head.

Then we all reconvened as one big group and our trainers had us go over our scenario and discuss it. We talked about our ambivalence about calling CPS, and the fact that this woman wants to kill her baby. The trainer said, “She has post-partum depression. These thoughts are very common with this disorder.” Ha! That shut up some of the people in my group. I asked the trainer, “Do you think intrusive thoughts are common in regular depression as well?” She said, “Yes definitely. As a matter of fact, suicidal ideation can be an intrusive thought. These thoughts can come into a person’s consciousness totally at random and they might think they actually want to kill themselves. It can become an obsession.” I asked, “Do you think intrusive thoughts are a form of OCD?” And she said, “Yes, definitely.” Again, I went on a little too long with this line of questioning, in an attempt to get the people in my group to understand me. I said, “I heard that sometimes people get intrusive thoughts of a sexual nature, like an elderly woman picturing her priest naked.” The trainer said, “That isn’t uncommon either.”

One of the trainers felt that this was not a situation where CPS should be called, the other trainer felt that if we got a call like this we should discuss it immediately with a supervisor to get advice. Then I said, “I don’t think CPS would do anything anyway” and the trainer agreed. I said, “CPS would have to see physical evidence of abuse in order to take action” and the trainer agreed to that also. I learned that in my training as a court appointed advocate for my foster child. My group was very surprised to hear that also.

At the end of our fictitious call the woman had planned to call her sister to have her come over right away, and we decided that if the sister could come right away the situation would be diffused. If the woman hadn’t been able to find anyone to come stay with her, then we should send intervention.

After the session, I just was alarmed at how emotional I had become during this little debate. I’m sure it was triggered by the evaluation, even though there was positive criticism given to me as well.

I also feel that I might not be able to remain detached enough to deal with callers in crisis. Last week when I was listening in to real calls I got tears in my eyes at one point. A caller really caused me to get emotional. I don’t think I’m at a good place emotionally and mentally right now to take on other people’s emotions, and I’m not sure how to NOT take on their emotions. Maybe that will be a part of the training, but I kind of doubt it.

It feels like a relief to have that option – tomorrow I observe the hotline again and I’ll be taking a few calls. The next training session is Tuesday night. I’ll see how tomorrow and Tuesday go, and I’ll think about this some more. I don’t want to rush into a decision, but my intuition is telling me that working on the hotline is not the right thing for me at this time.

Jun 12 2009

Keeping Busy

Back from Ohio, son is safe and sound and all of his shit is piled in the garage. He is only home for a few days, so we’ve got lots of work to do. I listened to audiobooks on my way to and from Ohio, rather than dwell on my therapy, or my friendships, or myself. It was a great way to pass the time. I finished Watchers by Dean Koontz which was excellent. I recommend it especially if you like dogs. Then I listened to Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. I liked most of the book, it was ironic that the first section was about Johnny Appleseed and took place in Ohio, which is where we were. I skipped the tulips section and the second half of the cannabis section. The potato section was the most fascinating – the author discussed genetically modified plants. That is a subject everybody really should do a lot of thinking about. The last section of this book is a good introduction to the topic.

Haven’t received a response email from J, my therapist, and I guess at this point I’m not expecting one. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I’m not thinking much about therapy or J. I’m practicing mindfulness, keeping busy, eating right, working out, doing my son’s laundry, reading, listening to music, working, doing errands, keeping up with blogs, crocheting roses for the runners in the 5K I’m running in next Saturday, practicing photoshop, taking photographs, cleaning up the mess my daughter made of the house today, oh, and sleeping of course.

I’m feeling childish about avoiding my friend who hurt me last month. She texted me, called me, and emailed me in the last week. I emailed her briefly about my son, and how he probably is going to be kicked out of school. She emailed back to ask if I am okay, and I just didn’t answer. She can’t possibly understand, and after she attacked me last month about him and how I enable him, I just can’t muster up the energy to have any discussion with her about my son, my feelings, or our relationship. So avoidance is the order of the day.

I did, however, email another friend, who was also at the birthday dinner. She is one of my oldest, closest friends. J encouraged me to contact my friends and not to run away. I knew he was right, and I feel safest with this particular friend. We are having lunch next week. I can’t decide if I’m feeling good or bad about it. My childish side wants to say, “Fuck everyone, I don’t need any of you,” and my adult side says, “I need my friends, they support me, I need to feel connection.” So I’m going to stick with my safe friends for now, as a compromise.

May 27 2009

A Couple Great Blogs and A Great Book

I’ve been reading a wonderful blog called Graceful Creative. It is written by a mom in her thirties with two young kids. She says on her blog that she is on a journey to become a better her. I highly recommend reading it.

The other day she talked about Dr. Brene Brown who also has a blog Ordinary Courage and has written a book called I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) — Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power. On Dr. Brown’s website it says “she has spent the past ten years studying connection – specifically authenticity, belonging, and shame, and the affect these powerful emotions have on the way we live, love, parent, work and build relationships.” Her book is amazing and I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile I keep writing emails to my therapist, J, and not sending them. Every time I write it and read it, it sounds like whining. How do you talk about your problems without sounding like you are whining and complaining? I can’t do it.

Apr 22 2009

A Conversation With My Son

me (10:32 PM): Hi

A (10:32 PM): hi

me (10:32 PM): I miss u. Just wanted you to know that

A (10:33 PM): thanks

me (10:33 PM): Sure. It’s weird here without you

A (10:34 PM): why

me (10:35 PM): Because I don’t know what you are doing or thinking

A (10:35 PM): how do you know what i’m thinking when i’m at home anyway

me (10:36 PM): I can feel what you’re thinking sometimes

A (10:36 PM): oh

me (10:37 PM): I think I understand you sometimes. You understand me more than dad or M I think

A (10:38 PM): probably

me (10:38 PM): You agree?

A (10:39 PM): yes

me (10:39 PM): Its hard sometimes to live with people who don’t understand you. I hope you have found people who understand you

A (10:41 PM): i think so

me (10:41 PM): It makes you feel connected and happier. So even though I miss you I hope you are successful at school so you can be with people you connect with

A (10:43 PM): thanks

me (10:43 PM): Ok time for bed. I love you !!

A (10:43 PM): love you too

me (10:44 PM): Night

A (10:44 PM): night

Apr 14 2009

Will I Be Better Off?

Therapy wasn’t so bad today. All of that anxiety for nothing. J talked to me about transference. I’m not that crazy about the whole transference theory. It seems like it can dehumanize feelings a bit. But if he wants to put a label on this, that’s fine. He talked about how we deal with things on the surface, and also at a deeper level. We actually talked about a lot of different things. I told him that I don’t tell anyone in my life the things I’ve told him. He wondered if I thought he wasn’t dealing with my feelings in a validating manner, and I said I thought there were times when on the one hand he would tell me feelings are neither good nor bad, but on the other hand he would tell me my feelings are wrong. He asked for an example. I told him there was a time when I was telling him that I didn’t like being tall, and how difficult it was growing up because I was so much taller than everyone else. And his response was that he thought everyone would WANT to be tall. I said that basically he was telling me my feelings are wrong. He didn’t say, “That must have been hard for you, growing up and feeling so different.” He did just what my mother always did – “What do you mean you don’t like being tall? It’s great to be tall!” (She is 5’ tall by the way).

Then J told me about “enactments”, which apparently is what we did in that scenario. We acted out the same scene that happened in my childhood. How did he know just what to say to mimic my mother anyway? I asked what I did wrong to get that response from him. He said I didn’t do anything wrong, but later he said that I have a pattern of trying to take responsibility for things that aren’t my fault, and always blaming myself for situations. He said he was operating on a CBT level, which isn’t usually his preferred method of therapy, but is a technique that he uses along with others. So he was trying to address my maladaptive ideation by being logical and telling me that he thought most people would like to be tall, when actually what I needed was to have my feelings validated. I said that it just reconfirmed that my feelings are wrong. He said it reconfirmed my feeling that my feelings are wrong. OK, whatever. I said I do think it was partially my fault because I had expressed in our sessions that there are things I didn’t want to talk about, so basically I was keeping everything on a surface level. Perhaps that is why he responded that way.

So we talked more about how I was the “perfect” child and this led me to be independent and never ask for help and never reveal my feelings, a way of life that persists to this day. But when one is a child and is so independent and self sufficient and never reveals their feelings, they never get help and attention that they need. And everyone needs help and attention. I said that it’s kind of scary in therapy because I need to talk about my feelings and what I need. Because I know I need things from people. I mean, I can depend on myself and I can do everything myself, but one needs other people in order to feel connected. Relationships are important.

J asked if I would be better off if I was able to express my feelings and needs to people. I’m really not sure about that. I know things are missing in my life right now, but it’s safe. If I were to reveal my feelings and needs to others, I might get what I’m missing, but I would be paying a price. We talked about having expectations of others, and I said I have low expectations of others, that way I’m not disappointed. But I have very high expectations of myself, which is why I never measure up.

So would I be better off? I really don’t know. Is it worth the risks? I don’t know.

Jan 28 2009

Therapy Recap – 1/27/09

Therapy Update 1/27/09

Yesterday was therapy. I didn’t do an update yesterday, first of all because we didn’t really talk about anything too interesting, and second of all I had the brilliant (said sarcastically) image of self worth as garlic.

So my therapist asked if I brought the list, and we talked about how the list is helping me to be able to talk about issues. How it is easier to bring things up because we can just pick a number and read it off the list, and because I don’t have to obsess about what to talk about. We did discuss how some of the things are low priority and some high, and it’s good to mix it up so that we’re not always talking about “heavy” issues.

J picked another number, but it was the body image issue, and we’ve discussed that the last couple of weeks, so I asked if he would choose another. The next one he picked was: Therapy is disjointed, non-continuous. Every week we talk about something else and nothing ever gets resolved.

He said for some issues this is true. If one had a desire to quit smoking pot, then every week they would talk about how much pot they smoked that week, and how much less they would smoke in the coming week, etc. But with the self esteem and anxiety and those type of things it might feel as though we are always talking about something different. And how just talking about these things could help resolve them. Which brought up the issue of how I feel like I’m a failure at therapy because just talking about these issues isn’t making me feel better. J thought I felt better during last week’s session, and I agreed that I felt better than I did the week before. The week before I felt like total shit during and after the session, we were talking about body image and that’s a tough subject for me to talk about. Last week we talked about self esteem in a more practical, less personal way and it was easier. We also talked about how we can spend 45 minutes talking about something when we really have more important things to talk about, but I just can’t talk about those things that day.

I told J that instead of writing in my journal I now write on a blog online. I told him that it’s easier for me to type than write, and since I’m typing I may as well put it online for others to read if they so desire. I told him that people read and comment on my blog and it makes me feel good to get that support and to know that others are going through similar situations. And I don’t have to pay those people to listen to me. He asked if the fact that I pay him taints the caring feelings, and I said yes definitely. I said that someone like him would never talk to someone like me in real life. He acted like he didn’t understand that, like what do I mean about a person like him and a person like me? We have discussed this before and I reminded him of that. I said you know what I mean, we have discussed this. He said that he was at a dinner party the other day and talked to people he didn’t know. He said that people just need a connection and they will talk to each other, and I said well we would never have a connection in real life, unless we were in a car accident and you needed my driver’s license number. He wanted more explanation. I said ok, “You are young, I am old. You are a man, I am a woman. You are a doctor and are smart, I am not. You are good looking, I am not. You would never have a connection with me if we were to meet outside of this office.” That’s what I believe and I’m sticking to it. I said that I’m basing this feeling on past experience, and he said, “Like what?” I told him like experiences I had starting in elementary school and how people always thought I was weird and ugly and nerdy.

Then we started to talk about self esteem, the same kind of thing we talked about last week. And he asked me if there was a period in my life when my self esteem was high, or higher, than it is now. I said “You already asked me that. We talked about that.” I mean, I know he has lots of other clients, but he asked me the same exact question last week. I said, “Think!” I felt bad putting him on the spot, so I said that yes, my self esteem was higher when I was in my 30′s. Then the lightbulb went off in his head and he remembered us talking about it. How much is it reasonable to expect one’s therapist to remember what we’ve talked about? Not to mention it reconfirms my feeling that what I’m talking about is so uninteresting that my therapist can’t even remember that we talked about it.

We talked about high school, and popular kids, and how I didn’t go to my high school reunions after the first one, and how I’m on Facebook and reconnected with people from school, but of course not the popular people, and how I came to believe I was weird, ugly and nerdy and I still feel that way. He asked how I can get back to the good feeling of self esteem from my 30′s and I said I can’t. I said, is it an issue of getting back to that feeling, or just accepting the way I am now?

Then we talked about how I believe that J thinks self esteem is influenced by things, like having a job, or having friends. And I believe that feeling good or bad about things like jobs and friends is influenced by self esteem. If one has high self esteem and gets hurt by a friend, chances are that person won’t be as affected by it as someone who has low self esteem. But I could have a great job and great friends, and I still will have low self esteem.

We talked about “Survivor” and whether those people are self conscious because they are dirty and don’t shower, and pee in public, etc. I said I thought that the contestants on Survivor must all have pretty high self esteem before they start. Which led to a discussion of “Biggest Loser”, a show I don’t understand at all. I just don’t understand how these people do this show. I applaud their desire to lose weight and get in shape, but I would never ever ever ever wear bike shorts and a sports bra and stand on a scale in front of the entire world, and I weigh at least 100 pounds less than the smallest person on the show. I told J how I like the show at the beginning, I do realize that the contestants are much larger than me (my body image isn’t that skewed, I don’t think I look like I weigh 300 pounds), but towards the end of the show I start to compare myself to the contestants. Seeing what they look like and how much they weigh I think, “Do I look like that? Do my thighs look like that?” It’s crazy.

J wants me to think this week about how much I experience low vs high self esteem. How much self consciousness I feel. For example, I can spend two hours cooking a meal for friends and feel good, but when I serve the meal I’ll feel self conscious. And if anyone criticizes my meal I would definitely suffer a slump in self esteem. I’m not crazy about this homework assignment, which I’m usually not actually, but whatever – I’ll think about it.

It’s been a somewhat sad day for me. My dad died 11 years ago today. I facebooked my sister and my aunt and we reminisced about him. I called my mom, and she didn’t even mention him, which is what happens every year. I brought up the subject of dad, and she said, yes, she knows. My husband hasn’t said a word. He saw the memorial candle lit in the kitchen, and he saw it right on the calendar. Is it too much for him to say “Today is the day your dad died – how are you doing?” My friend says that’s not a guy thing to do. I can’t imagine just ignoring the anniversary of someone’s parent’s death, whether one is a man or a woman. But maybe I’m wrong. I wonder what my dad would think.